Beer of the Week

The beer: Coffee Bender

Brewed by: Surly Brewing Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Description (from the website): "Guatemalan coffee, roasted locally, is added to our house oatmeal brown ale. Cold press coffee aromatics and intense coffee flavors are balanced by the oats in the malt bill, resulting in a cappuccino-like creaminess."

Would I buy it again?: Usually when you see coffee in a beer, it's a stout, not a brown ale. Unlike the Sheetz donut beer, however, a brown ale isn't too terribly far removed from a stout, and as you can see from the picture, this beer is plenty dark. However, that brown ale does keep things comparatively light, so while I wouldn't call this a beer you could easily down a six pack of, it doesn't fill you up like a coffee stout might. The taste is good as well, so this beer definitely gets my approval.